Rev. Stanley DeCamp speaks at Vaillancourt Folk Art’s 2009 Collector’s Weekend about the history of Christmas’ icon, Santa Claus. His lecture explains the transition of the American Santa from, 1626 – 2009. In addition, he explains the development from his European counterpart.
Judi Vaillancourt: Historical Reference in Design
Don’t forget that tonight (Friday, December 11) is our Annual Men’s Night from 5:00pm – 8:00pm! Vaillancourt Folk Art has been hosting Men’s Night for two decades and many men (and women) have made it a tradition—why not you?. This year, we are fortunate to have some tremendous PR, including WTAG AM-580′s morning personality Jim Polito, so if you haven’t come before or have been thinking about coming, this year will be one not to miss!
Let the Vaillancourt family assist you in starting a tradition with Vaillancourt Chalkware. Sit back and relax with food, beverages and a live German oompah band while your Christmas gift is wrapped for the holiday.
All of us at Vaillancourt Folk Art wish to thank all who attended the performances of A Christmas Carol performed by Gerald Charles Dickens, the Great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens. We had four fabulous performances to sold out crowds! All attendees were touched by Mr. Dickens’ performances of this one man show, as he took the stage in a modified version of Charles Dickens’ readings of the timeless story, A Christmas Carol.
Even more so, it was gratifying to see the generations of families come in to our Gallery and Museum see the performance and then meet Mr. Dickens!
Vaillancourt is about traditions and we are happy to not only have families continue their traditions with us, but hundreds started new traditions with us this weekend!
We would like to thank the Byers family, from Byers Choice in PA, for all of their assistance in making this performance happen. Like us, Byers Choice is an American made treasure and Joyce, Bob Jr. and Jeff Byers have always been extremely helpful in making sure that “American Made Christmas” survives.
We would also like to thank Paul Boutiette and Neil Crites of the Manchaug Mills for their assistance in creating Blaxton Hall. WSRS and WTAG for their media sponsorship and Millbury Federal Credit Union for their sponsorships. We also want to thank Mechanics Hall for sharing their Charles Dickens story, Professor Joel Brattin, Margaret F. Anderson, and Michael Dorsey of the WPI George C. Gordon Library, Fellman Dickens Collection—a premier source of Dickens materials— for sharing their knowledge, expertise, and producing the images used for the posters in Blaxton Hall. Most importantly, thank all of our attendees for making this performance of A Christmas Carol possible.
For over twenty five years, the Vaillancourt family has been making Santas. The recipe is simple, take an historic collection of chocolate moulds, add an apparent love of the holidays, involve the entire family and the results are apparent. Quality and historically correct chalkware Santas created in America by masters painters.
Judi Vaillancourt received a small collection of antique candy molds (three pieces!) and decided to play a bit with them. She tried using them to make chocolate Santas, as well as beeswax Santas. She then settled on using a liquid chalk material, coined by them as “contemporary chalkware*”. The Santas were a success when she showed them — getting orders for 30 pieces. The next time the order was for 100 pieces! Pretty soon it wasn’t a hobby, but a full-time business. About that time husband Gary’s work contract was up and he joined the business. Son Luke joined the family business in August of 2007 as the Director of Digital Marketing.
Read Barbara Crews’ full article, Collecting Chalkware Santas from Vaillancourt, on about.com!
